How long is the wait in your ER ?

You should have told him its a good thing he's not in NZL...

I once waited, (as a patient), in the ED for 8 hours, they admitted me, then kicked me out two days later, only to ring me back up and say "we just got back the blood results, you better get back here, NOW".

Mind you, that 5 years ago, and I think they've improved. :trout:

Longest wait: 12 hours (and an ambo bought me in). For all the ED RNs out there, remember to turn up the TV loud enough that the patients' can hear, its not fun trying to figure out what movie Bruce Willis is in without sound.

My hospital is a level 1 trauma center, and ppl sometimes wait for literally DAYS. Of course, they've been triaged, but usually they end up right where they started, back in the waiting room.

Even folks who are brought in by EMS end up in the waiting room usually.

It's the traumas that get in. I try to tell ppl that we are the ONLY trauma center in the entire state, and they should go to a different hospital for their routine 'emergencies'. They just get that glazed over look and say 'but we're already here'.

ah well.

About 4 years ago 11 hours. I was on the verge of losing my big toe!! How sad!!

It depends on the day. Monday afternoon/evening, we have a wait of up to 4 hrs. Other days/times we can get people into a bed in less than 2 hrs. Sunday is bad for peds with quick times to rooms, but up to 2 hr waits to see the doc. In my ED, your best bet to come in is weekday early mornings by 530, 600. I don't even give those evil starers a second thought. All my brainpower is being consumed by making sure the sick people are being seen....

A small town hospital 20 miles from me has an advertisement above their ED door that says "Guarenteed to see the Dr in 45 mins or less". How do you guarentee that???

Well, my patients have grown old with a beard as long as Rip Van Winkle waiting...

I think the wait time is under 30 mins. People still complain and write letters. This isn't McDonald's. A drive thru it isn't.

The longest I've ever waited, even in large hospitals is 15 mins. But I have a knack for showing up on really slow nights.

Had the usual 1900 influx of people and 45 waiting. We have 25 bed, had pt's in the hall ways, still had pt's on cots with various wounds etc. This is the typical night. We were on city wide diversion. We were getting the usual knife in the back stares from pt's waiting. (most of which didn't need to be there in the first place). There was a guy with a 7 or 8 year old with abd. pain, n/v no fever , had been reassesed a couple of times so on and so on. The boy was a priority even though we suspected it was viral as opposed to appy or worse. The man was irate. He yelled at us told us this would never happen in Chicago. Maybe I'm wrong, but , I find it really hard to belive that Chicago has low wait time. I get sooooo, tiered of being treated like Sh#$. I understand pain , fever and general sickness.....I truley do. I feel so bad for many pt's that have to wait. I wish there were some way to take care of people better. Of course, with some people it wouldn't matter, they enjoy pushing their wait around. So: to get back to my question, how long is your average wait?

i wonder what hospital in chicago he went to?? the county hospital in chicago can have a 12-16hour wait. even the private hospitals have up to a 6 hour wait. it doesn't bother me any more when patients complain about wait time. i understand and i empathize, but i can't change it so the less i think about it the less stressed i am.

I work in a far out suburb of a major city, boarders on suburbs and the country. We do really well, usually about 30 minutes from door to doctor or less. It's a really bad day for us if there is a two hour wait to be seen.

But, people still complain. I once had a woman who's child was registered, triaged, evaled by a doctor, labs drawn, results interpreted, medications ordered, Rx filled, and d/c with instructions in 45 minutes and she chewed me out because it took so long! Unless the doctor meets the patient at the door and there will always be people who think it takes too long. What always kills me is when I go to my clinic, with an appointment, I still might wait 30-60 minutes to see the doctor.

We had a guarentee for a while, patients would have a physician eval or a treatment/procedure started with in 45 minutes. If not then we would give them a $25 gift certificate to a retail store. The laughable part was that management told us that treatments/procedures included the triage nurse giving tylenol/advil, ordering UA's, X-rays, or even giving them a warm blanket! It was a joke, but we usually do pretty good anyways that we did not hand out too many gift certificates.

When I was an er admitting superviser people would wait on average of 6-8 hrs to be seen. Sometimes the wait was 4-5 just for triage. It blows my mind at the number of people that use the er as a Dr.'s office and even more at the number of Dr.'s that sent thier pt.'s to the er to be seen just because they dont want to deal with them.

Ah, the ever present argument about wait times...

I think what every one is forgetting that we are always trying to compare appples and oranges in healthcare...

The big thing in the media in Canada is wait times... wait times for surgery, ait times for cancer treatment,wait times for emergency care etc.

The media never distinguishes between wait times for AAA repairs (I've never seen a team move so fast), trauma interventions, loss of limb etc., or non urgent care (hip replacements, knee replacements), sore toe.

What exactly does "Wait time" mean (at least in an ER context)?

... Does it mean the amount of time to be greeted coming in the door (time X) ?

... Does it mean time "x" to registration or triage ?

... Does it mean time "x" to be brought in to be assessed by an RN (often with stretcher, IV, initial testing blood work)?

... Does it mean time "x" to MD assessment (or resident coming to see then discussing case with the ER doc), and orders received for diagnostics.

... then of course their is the wait time from time "x" to diagnostic imaging, blood tests, ultrasound and CT scan for that vague abdominal pain in your 94 year old grandma.

Oh, and don't forget the wait time from time "x" to having the general surgeon (or surgical resident) getting away from the OR (love those knee replacements) to come talk to you and making plans to observe overnight in the ER.

I get the feeling that most of the time wait times refer to the time from time "x" to the doctor just giving the paitient their bloody percocets for their sore toes, so that they can swear at me and get their taxi slip to go to their cousins house.

Maybe wait times refer to from time "x" to beign admitted and having all of your lifes problems solved in the ER (sorry if I am getting more sarcastic as we go along).

So what is it... what is your definition of wait time ? we need to sort this out before having a meaningful discussion about how to resolve wait times.

Regards

Ian (after 4 night shifts in the ER)